The infamous anti-fracking photo-op was no casual event, it was a carefully orchestrated photo-op – UPDATED January 27, 2015

So says Maureen Malarkey, whose research seems solid to me. The photo-op, of course, included this now famous photograph:

The author gives the background to this event, and it is quite eye-opening:

Effort was made by papal apologists to dismiss the image as nothing more than a visual equivalent to Francis’ off-the-cuff malapropisms—a genial Francis being courteous to some activists.

No, it was not. And these were not just any activists. The older of the two men in the photo is Fernando Solanas, an Argentine film director, avowed propagandist, and politician. A key player in Buenos Aires, he ran for president of Argentina on the Socialist ticket in 2007 and stood for the senate last year. In the 1960s, he co-founded the influential, radical film collective Grupo Cine Liberación (The Liberation Film Group) with Octavio Gettino, Both were Marxists and supporters of Juan Perón at the time.

Together with Gettino, Solanas also founded Tercer Cine (Third Cinema), a title referencing the Third Word. Prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a movement—a school—opposed to neocolonialism and capitalism……..

…..That meeting between Francis and Solanas on November 11, 2013, had been scheduled for months. It was the culmination of a Vatican conference on “environmental crimes” with Argentine activists. Federal prosecutor Gustavo Gomez participated. When discussions ended, Francis’ invited Solanas and Gomez into his apartment for a private audience and closing photo-op. A cameraman and sound technician accompanied. There was nothing casual about it.

Solanas and Gomez were eager for the pope to declare major environmental missteps “crimes against humanity.” No definition was given of what constituted a crime or distinguishes it from an accident. Instead, the men praised Francis’ slogan for his upcoming campaign: “We must pray for children who receive dirty bread their parents give them.”

The film ran while the pope sorted through the T-shirts and held them up to the camera: “Say No to Fracking” and “Water Is Worth More than Gold.” That done, image-conscious Francis selected the wall he wanted to pose against while he delivered a homilette. It is a disquieting, rambling bit of stagecraft.

In the course of it, Francis has condemned 46 percent youth unemployment in an unnamed European country but appears to have no grasp of the causes of such unemployment. He offers only distaste for the vague “unjust international system” we are living in. That, plus a wave of the hand encompassing Hiroshima, mining, and high-voltage cables is presented in evidence that “we are living the myth of Shiva.”

Despite the resurgence of a conquering Islam and the gruesome cleansing of Christians from the Middle East, Francis declares that “the greatest conflict that is rising is the struggle over water.” We must not waste or contaminate water. Toward the end of this strange performance, Francis quotes Zhou Enlai, Mao’s henchman. While an innocuous quotation in itself, Francis’ choice of it signals sympathy with Solanas’ ideological tastes. [I have to wonder why a pope would have quotes from Zhou En-Lai available for immediate mental recall. Wow. And that is such a shrewd thing to do, and we have seen it frequently.]

It bears mention that the photo-op provided invaluable publicity for Solanas’ La Guerra del Fracking (“The Fracking War”), banned in Argentina by the government. This was a backhanded but unsubtle papal intrusion into Argentine politics.[Which, given Francis’ very public closeness to the current Peronist president of Argentina, Nicole Kirchner (whose father was a Nazi general), this is one of the most direct and incredible involvements of the papacy in the political process of a nation in a century or so. Kirchner and her party are on the ropes for many reasons, the prime one being that their socialist economic policies have once again bankrupted the nation and left the economy prostrate, but also because Kirchner is incredibly corrupt and looks to have had a prime opponent murdered. Make of all that what you will, it is certainly a pretty significant departure from what we’ve seen from the past several popes]

———-End Quote——–

I think it should be obvious by now, this pope is a master of stagecraft and very little, if any, of the numerous photo-ops of this pontificate have truly been spontaneous. This is just one particularly well-researched event, but there are similar explanations (or would be, if someone took the time) of the “set up” for many others.

I’m trying to find some balance. I am determined to be realistic. I don’t agree with the title of the post at the link. Even though the evidence looks bad, I keep praying and hoping beyond hope that it’s not true. But I also won’t pretend things like this are not significant, and it’s also no accident we’re seeing more and more of this as we get closer to March’s first ever gerbal gorming encyclical.

UPDATE: Uff da. In another “off-the cuff”, spontaneous event, Pope Francis is planning to hold a photo-op at the US-Mexican border to show “brotherhood” with immigrants during his upcoming US visit. This is not confirmed, yet, so who knows what will develop.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Comments

I don’t care that he’s a leftist; that’s all too common in today’s church. But I do care that the man consistently confounds his own personal idiosyncrasies with the Teaching Magisterium of the Church, and that he so often does so through vulgar publicity stunts like the above. It was one thing when St. John Paul II or Benedict XVI allowed some questionable economic theory to intrude into papal encyclicals in a more or less ambiguous fashion; it’s entirely a different order of things to have the pope sifting through tendentious political t-shirts–T-shirts!–in order to find the one that…what? Makes the biggest splash? Most eloquently expresses his own views? Is the most photo-legible?

I guess we have the pope we deserve…. And we, the laity, are being called to heroic virtue at this point. Archbishop Sheen made it clear decades ago that the remnant of faithful laity was the only hope for the Church…. He said the clergy and hierarchy were already too corrupted to bring about any real renewal or reform in the Church. It is our hour.

Are you sure this was staged, and not some innocent attempt to be a gracious host to some visiting fellow countrymen? This is only Malarkey saying so, with no facts to back it up (except for all the incriminating facts she found). C’mon, who you gonna believe, The Professional Apologists or Malarkey, the facts and your own lying eyes?!?